In 2007 Behringer released the FCA202, a budget interface for home recording. It’s a basic little brick with two inputs and two outputs and not much else. Well, it’s 2020 and we need to find out if it ever figured out how to Linux.
Tech specs:
| Converters | 24-bit, Delta Sigma |
| Sample Rates | 44.1, 48 and 96kHz |
| Analog Input | 2 x 1/4″ TS phone |
| Analog Output | 2 x 1/4″ TRS phone 1 x 1/4″TRS phone Headphone |
| Digital Input | No |
| Digital Output | No |
| MIDI In/Out | No |
| Sync In/Out | No |
| Headphone Output | Yes |
| THD + N | 0.01% typical @ -10dBV, 1kHz |
| Dynamic Range | Not specified by manufacturer |
| Frequency Response | 10Hz to 21kHz, +/-1dB @ 44.1kHz 10Hz to 45kHz, +/-1dB @ 96kHz |
| Dimensions (WxDxH) | 6.1 x 4.53 x 1.1″ (155 x 115 x 28 mm) |
| Weight | 0.88 lbs (0.4 kg) |
Jackbox: Testing setup
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 7 1700 | ||
| RAM | Corsair LPX 16GB | ||
| Motherboard | MSI B350 Tomahawk | ||
| GPU | Nvidia Quadro 4000 | ||
| SSD | Samsung 840 | ||
| PSU: | EVGA 600 B1 | ||
| Firewire: | Syba SY-PEX30016 | ||
| Network: | Intel i350-T4 | ||
| OS: | Debian Buster | ||
| Kernel: | 5.4.47-rt | ||
| Desktop: | XFCE 4.12 | ||
Pulseaudio: Behringer FCA202 immediately recognized by ALSA and Pulseaudio.
ALSA: Settings exposed via alsamixer.
Jack: Connects using the drivers provided by FFADO.
Disable ALSA firewire drivers: If you don’t want ALSA or Pulseaudio to see the device you can disable it with the following.
Create the file alsa-nope.conf in /etc/modprobe.d/ and add the following. Reboot.
blacklist snd-oxfw
Behringer FCA202: Round-trip latency @44100 HZ
Behringer FCA202: Round-trip latency @48000 HZ
Behringer FCA202: Round-trip latency @96000 HZ
Verdict:
It does what is says on the tin, just. However, the FCA202 needs to use ALSA drivers for recording since FFADO drivers generate pops and clicks. That doesn’t sound like much of an issue until you initialize the jack pulseaudio bridge. Yeah, it’s going to get busy with the xruns. Switching to the FFADO drivers eliminates the xruns but you’re going to be constantly swapping the drivers if you plan on using the FCA202 as a sound card & interface on the same system.
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Behringer FCA202
Pros
ALSA support
Pulseaudio support
Bus powered
Acceptable AD conversion
Cons
Bad FFADO drivers
Unbalanced inputs
Limited to 96K
Pulseaudio bridge issues with ALSA
